Holy Math: D’var Torah for Parashat B’har-B’chukotai
By Rabbi Boaz D.
Heilman
The Torah loves math.
I’m not only speaking of the Ten Commandments—a number that’s handy and easy to remember. There are countless instances where the Torah
measures and re-measures taxes, people, animals, dry goods, liquids, and even
time.
The Torah has a strict unit of measurement, which it calls
the “sanctuary weight.” That’s the
standard by which our contributions to the Temple are measured. You can’t whittle away an inch or an ounce,
solid or liquid. Your contribution is considered
holy and so it must be measured by a sacred standard, “sanctuary weight.”
But human beings are only human, and sometimes we try to get
away with substandard measures.
Sometimes we give just a bit less than what is expected of us; sometimes
we renege on promises. There are Ponzi schemes
and pyramid schemes, cheating on tests, even grade inflation. The most recent
addition to our ever-expanding vocabulary of fraudulent behavior is deflategate, also known as “Ballghazi.”
It doesn’t matter that the “sanctuary weight” of game-time
footballs is somewhat variable to begin with, a range of anywhere between 12.5 and
13.5 pounds per square inch, or PSI’s.
And it doesn’t matter that the Patriots’ 45-7 win against the Baltimore
Colts was so decisive that it’s hard to imagine that underinflating the balls
by a couple of PSI’s made any difference at all. The point is that somewhere there, whether
with Tom Brady’s knowledge or not, someone probably tampered with the
balls. Just in case, you know, just to
make sure. Just to stack the odds a tiny
bit. Practically unnoticeably.
Deflategate
happened because, unfortunately, in our culture winning is everything. We tell our children that the real value of
the sport is in how you play the game, but reality, we know—and our children
soon learn from us—is different.
In our culture, winning is everything. You win if you have the right car; the
largest house; the thickest portfolio of successful stocks; the largest number
of followers in the various social media.
That’s why this week’s Torah portion is so perfectly on
target. B’har-B’chukotai (Lev. 25:1—27:34, actually a double portion)
restates the rules for us.
By these rules, as it turns out, these common standards by
which we measure success do not constitute a valid measurement of our value. Not before God, at any rate. As Moses sees it from the top of Mt. Sinai, holiness—by
the Sanctuary system of weights and measurements—is not found in the final tally
of our possessions. Holiness is not
measured by the number of oxen you bring to the sacrifice; a pinch of salt will
suffice if that’s all you can afford, as long as if you bring it with true kavvanah, with true intention and
humility.
In the Courts of Heaven, a person’s worth is evaluated by
what he or she does, not by who they are or how much they own.
וְכִי יָמוּךְ אָחִיךָ--“And should your brother be
bent low,” the text tells us (Lev. 25:25, 39)—we must reach
out and help him rise again. Not merely
as an impersonal act of charity, but rather because we recognize in that fallen
person a brother, a kinsman, a fellow human being who needs our help.
Dignity toward one another in
our varying needs, dignity towards the Earth and its various needs—these
constitute the true yardstick by which God measures us. Dignity is the outer cloak of holiness.
When we look at the countryside from high ontop a mountain,
we see it as we cannot when we find ourselves far below the summit. From his perspective on the top of Mt. Sinai,
Moses sees an ideal world that mundane matters often hinder us from seeing. He sees not a wilderness, but a rich earth giving
its food, fruit and wine in such plenty that no one needs to go hungry—not the
poor, not the stranger, not even the stray animal.
At the foot of the mountain, Moses sees a folk made up not
of downtrodden refugees from slavery and abuse, but rather a worthy people
risen to a state of holiness.
It isn’t an impossible dream. But achieving it does mean that we must learn
to measure ourselves by a different yardstick, by a standard that cannot be
inflated or deflated. Our worth is
determined by the Sanctuary Weight—by how much we do for one another, by the
respect we show our neighbor, by the dignity with which we treat life and the
earth around us.
In the end, we are remembered not by how much money we made
in our lifetime, but rather by the amount of kindness we spread around us. That’s our true worth, both here and in the
life hereafter.
That’s the kind of counting the Torah loves best.
© 2015 by Boaz D. Heilman
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